Tuesdays with Dorie (Baking Chez Moi): Lemon Meringue Tart A New Way

This week, for Tuesdays with Dorie I’m mixing things up. We’re supposed to be posting a recipe from Dorie’s Cookies but that recipe happens to be ANZAC biscuits (my name is in that headnote!!) and since next Tuesday happens to be ANZAC Day, I’m posting it then. So this week’s recipe is the second from Baking Chez Moi this month, Dorie’s Lemon Meringue Tart “a new way”. According to Dorie, it’s “new” because the filling is a cross between a traditional lemon meringue pie filling and a flan:

It’s got all the best qualities of a flan and everything you want in a filling.

The difference? LOTS of lemon juice (3/4 cup) along with cornstarch, egg yolks, milk, sugar and lemon zest which oes make for a much lighter pastry cream and, seeing other people’s versions last week, I was worried it wasn’t going to set. I actually only used 1/2 cup lemon juice and a little more zest because I knew I wanted the lemon meringue to be “cuttable” and I wasn’t sure what the higher ratio of lemon juice would do… Obviously, I minified this recipe and made six 4-inch tartlets instead of one large one.

In fact, the lemon filling wasn’t the issue at all for me – it was lovely and thick after I’d cooked it (took about 8 minutes, like Dorie said it would) and after a night in the fridge required quite a lot of vigorous whisking to get it to a stage where I could pipe it into the shells. The meringue, on the other hand… Never got quite to still peaks (and I whipped the egg whites for over 10 minutes at high speed with my electric hand beater… too lazy to bring out the stand mixer for just 3 whites…). Not sure if I might have had a touch of yolk in there (I don’t think so…) or if the bowl wasn’t quite clean (don’t think so either) but they never stood up to stiff peaks 🙁 It was pipe-able, however so I piped a meringue topping onto the tartlets, hoping it would hold – it did, JUST, though it was softer than the filling (you can just see the tiny imprint from the star tip I used but the meringue wasn’t stiff enough to even hold that shape). The tartlets cut beautifully, everything just holding together (we were serving them as part of a dessert table where one whole one, normally the serving size, would have been too big combined with other desserts).

Will I make this again? Yes, definitely. I loved the silky creaminess of the filling. Do I need to work on my meringue? Yes, definitely!

Get the recipe for Dorie Greenspan’s Lemon Meringue Tart, A New Way on pp182-183 of Baking Chez Moi.

Tuesdays with Dorie participants don’t publish the recipes on our blogs, so you’re encouraged to purchase Baking Chez Moifor yourself which you can do on Amazon (this link should bring you to the Amazon store in your country) or for free worldwide shipping, buy from The Book Depository. Then join us, baking our way through the book!

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10 Responses to Tuesdays with Dorie (Baking Chez Moi): Lemon Meringue Tart A New Way

I am glad that you were more successful with your tart then mine. It sounds like if I decrease the lemon juice a bit it mind help my custard. I had the same issues with the meringue, it is not just you.

Your idea of using little pans is great!
I used an italian meringue that had 4 egg whites and 3/4 cup of sugar, and since it was my first time making any meringue I washed out every thing , bowl and beaters, with vinegar or lemon juice, Due to inexperience I may have over beaten the whites so I could not pipe either.